In-state recruiting

So all of this talk about Dantonio dominating RR at in-state recruiting and how can you contend for national championships when you don’t win your own state got me to thinking how could in-state recruiting could be quantified. I know that it's mostly state slappies but I'm bored, I’m an engineer and I like using numbers in an arguement not just,"We got Will Gholston." I couldn’t just show total in-state commits because Michigan casts a much bigger net than State does. To combat this I decided to compare in-state recruits that they competed over and take that back a couple of years just see if there is any pattern to prove or disprove Sparty’s latest claim.

I used Rivals' commit lists and looked to see which recruits had offers from both schools. Some of the 5 star recruits didn't show if sparty offered but it's a safe guess that they did so i counted them, otherwise if it didn't show one of the schools I didn't count it.

So basically, John L. Smith was useless. He barely tried to compete and failed miserably when he did. Dantonio decided to fight back and has been mildly successful. He won last year but that wasn’t unexpected. Smith wouldn’t have but Dantonio is a much better coach. Right now, it’s neck and neck and it will take this year and at least next to determine who’s winning in-state recruiting. Even with Danonio apparent focus on in-state recruits and M coming off the worst season in its history we are still borderline winning. Once M gets back to its winning ways I think most years it will look like the 2008 class. With M getting most of the recruits but Sparty stealing one or two, and you know what I’m ok with that.

I know it's pretty shoddy statistics and I am welcome to feedback, but I hope i made your work day more enjoyable.

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for MSU winning the recruiting battle. Only Chris Norman was a big loss for Michigan. Dion Sims, Michigan basically stopped recruiting him. RR didn't offer Baker and Caper schollie. MSU won only one recruiting battle but that was kind of not fair since Michigan went through a transition period so they never had a chance of getting Norman.

As for '08, I counted only one win for MSU. That's Fred Smith. He was once thought to be a Michigan commit until the last second switcheroo.

I would say that people like dion sims would count because M obviously wanted him or they wouldn't have offered him. I think they stopped recruiting him because he stopped showing interest not the other way around.

That's not how it happened. He didn't pick tight end at MSU over defensive end at Michigan. He picked TE at MSU over TE at Ohio State and TE at Miami. Michigan took themselves out of the race months before he decided.

I'm not sure how this is hard to understand. He didn't want to play DE and M didn't want him as a TE. If that was the situation that developed, I don't see how it's 'fair' to UM to say they lost the recruiting battle. It's more like they left the recruiting battle. A withdraw, not a loss.

On the overall scope of instate recruiting, I covered basically everything mghorm talked about in the hit piece I've been composing at GS...I'm just hesitant to put it out there, because it doesn't pull any punches and I don't feel like waking up with a wolverine's head in my bed. Still debating it.

sorry for stealing your thunder. You shoulda done it. The worst things that could happen are getting yelled by someone who has apparently forgotten his entire vocabulary not consisting of cussing or being proven wrong by someone with a competent arguement.

The 1997 UM Football team which won the National Championship and went 12-0 had 104 total players on the roster... only 43 of which were from the State of Michigan.

Again: The NC team had 43 of 104 players from In State.
8 out of 22 starters were from In State.

A total of 27 out of 104 players made NFL rosters upon graduation.

Last year's 3-9 team had 46 In State players on the total roster.

Note this includes Walk-ons, who are nearly always from In State...further skewing the numbers.

Conclusions:

1) Nothing has changed with the University of Michigan football recruiting. Michigan has nearly always recruited a roster of 60+% out of state recruits, with some in-state recruits and a number of in-state walk on.

2) Michigan Recruits Nationally because they can.

3) Michigan State recruits In State, because they have to.

4) More great talent lies out of state than in state. The top 20 players in UM history are again...mostly from out of state.

5) The fact that they come to the University of Michigan from all over the country does not diminish their ability or desire to play football well.

That isn't the point of this diary. No one questions the talent of out of state recruits. There are more recruits out of state than in-state so no shit that there is more talent.

The point of this is to show that recruiting dynamics within the state of Michigan have changed. Michigan is still getting between four and six in-state players a year, but it used to get first pick of those recruits with few exceptions. Now M still gets most of the in-state people that it wants but State has stepped up under Dantonio and is making more than a few exceptions. tate's recruiting has changed it's focus from trying to recruit the midewest to trying to recruit lock down the state of Michigan.

that it doesnt really matter to The University of Michigan... nothing has changed as far as our favorite program's recruiting focus, to be honest... so they "dyanmic changing" well it is not changing for UM. As RR stated (paraphrasing) ... "if a player is in state that we feel can help our program we will recruit him".

All the media bluster about what Sparty is doing in state is not really very relevant to what UM is doing.

<<<"The point of this is to show that recruiting dynamics within the state of Michigan have changed. Michigan is still getting between four and six in-state players a year, but it used to get first pick of those recruits with few exceptions.">>>

That is not true at all. Michigan has always had to compete with other schools for the state's top talent. The past few years have seen more and more talented in state players and therefore more suitors. MSU has just gotten more of these new top level kids to stay home.

Michigan Offered the following kids that chose out of state:
2008
Nick Perry - went to USC - #3 in state to rivals
Jonas Gray - went to Notre Dame - #4 in state to rivals
Michigan gets 4 of the top 10 in state players, MSU 3, and out of state gets 3.

2007
Ronald Johnson - went to USC - #1 in state to rivals
Dionte Allen - went to FSU - #2 in state to rivals
Joseph Barksdale - went to LSU - #3 in state to rivals
Darris Sawtelle - went to Tennessee - #5 in state to rivals
Chris Colasanti - went to PSU - #6 in state to rivals
#10 Ryan Van Bergen is the highest rated player in Michigan that we got. 8 of the top 10 went out of state, 1 to MSU and 1 to UofM.

2006
Michigan got 2 of 3 top 10 instate kids it went after, losing out to Utah on the one it didn't get. Before this class, Michigan had few kids on the national radar.

Why Michigan fans continue to be blind tha he is turning the tables within Michigan is beyond me. To say he has been "mildly successful" is a disingenuous head-in-the-sand statement that shows UM fans still really aren;t paying attention and are more worried about losing points to the posters here than making cogent arguments.

Dantonio is whipping UM's ass at least in perception, and he is getting better recruits than MSU has had in a long, long time. He has turned MSU into a recruiting force in the state of Michigan--but I know, a two star from Padookey Doohickey, Florida is better than a five star from Michigan, so there is that.

Tay Odoms, Ricky Barnum, Denard Robinson, Jeremy Gallon, Vlad Emilien, Ricardo Miller, and Marvin Robinson were all Florida recruits rated 4 stars. It's not like Michigan is taking scrubs from Florida. And you know, you implied there that Michigan is taking 2 stars from there while State is getting the 5 star in-state talent. I showed the first part was wrong. So what about the in-state part. Rivals goes back to 2003 with in-state rank. Here's where the in-state five stars went:

Then there's the fact that overall recruiting still has more impact that in-state alone. Michigan is currently in the Top 10 (again) while MSU is 18th after finishing 17th last year and out of the top 25 the year before. But yeah, I should be terrified, right?

You should obviously be terrified because the DYNAMICS of recruiting have changed. And the perception is that Dantonio is whipping UofM's ass.

Come on. How can you miss that the perception of MSU fans is that Dantonio is God and is beating U of M like a speed bag? Lets not sully our discourses with truth or factuality. That would be simply crazy.

MSU has improved, but they lost badly to OSU and PSU last season. They also lost to the other two good teams they faced - Cal and Georgia. The Michigan game was tied late. I'm not ready to give Dantonio too much credit just yet. He's turned around a ship that was way off course but has miles to go.

And I'm not saying Dantonio is primed for a bust in the college football hall of fame either, just that he shouldn't be taken lightly and neither should MSU anymore. He has improved the team two years in a row--with someone ELSE's players...

What that tells me is he is a good coach, John L left him some nice talent, and he changed the culture of fail there.

Now he seems to have some nice recruits, and I also agree that he has been able to take advantage of the transitional period at Michigan. But that transitional period has enabled him to gain a foothold and a foundation from which to build upon. And it DOES remain to be seen if he can go beyond his comfort zone of Michigan-Ohio to recruit talent. The smart money says "not so much"--but he definitley will be at least a thorn in UM's side for the foreseeable future.

Because if he re-registers, he can use each account to give himself +1s. Like he did 29 times between 7:29PM and 7:39PM today (I think that's the time period. I'm in mountain time, and it lists 5:29 to 5:39 for me.)

Have the ACME Company backing up to your door with an anvil or a Rocket Powered Roller Skate Set do ya? I'm in Central Time, and that's the dinner hour here--sorry, but you can retire your tin foil hat and turn in your Art Bell Secret Space Alien Communicator Wrist Phone now, as I've got better things to do than give myself points for posting.